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Building Machine
Learning Powered
Applications
Going from Idea to Product

Emmanuel Ameisen
 Building Machine Learning
Powered Applications
Going from Idea to Product

Emmanuel Ameisen

Beijing Boston Farnham Sebastopol Tokyo

Building Machine Learning Powered Applications
by Emmanuel Ameisen
Copyright © 2020 Emmanuel Ameisen. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472.
O’Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online editions are
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February 2020: First Edition

Revision History for the First Edition

2020-01-17: First Release

See http://oreilly.com/catalog/errata.csp?isbn=9781492045113 for release details.

The O’Reilly logo is a registered trademark of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Building Machine Learning Powered
Applications, the cover image, and related trade dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc.
The views expressed in this work are those of the author, and do not represent the publisher’s views.
While the publisher and the author have used good faith efforts to ensure that the information and
instructions contained in this work are accurate, the publisher and the author disclaim all responsibility
for errors or omissions, including without limitation responsibility for damages resulting from the use of
or reliance on this work. Use of the information and instructions contained in this work is at your own
risk. If any code samples or other technology this work contains or describes is subject to open source
licenses or the intellectual property rights of others, it is your responsibility to ensure that your use
thereof complies with such licenses and/or rights.

978-1-492-04511-3
[LSI]
 Table of Contents

Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

Part I. Find the Correct ML Approach

1. From Product Goal to ML Framing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Estimate What Is Possible 4
Models 5
Data 13
Framing the ML Editor 15
Trying to Do It All with ML: An End-to-End Framework 16
The Simplest Approach: Being the Algorithm 17
Middle Ground: Learning from Our Experience 18
Monica Rogati: How to Choose and Prioritize ML Projects 20
Conclusion 22

2. Create a Plan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Measuring Success 23
Business Performance 24
Model Performance 25
Freshness and Distribution Shift 28
Speed 30
Estimate Scope and Challenges 31
Leverage Domain Expertise 31
Stand on the Shoulders of Giants 32
ML Editor Planning 36
Initial Plan for an Editor 36
Always Start with a Simple Model 36

iii
 To Make Regular Progress: Start Simple 37
Start with a Simple Pipeline 37
Pipeline for the ML Editor 39
Conclusion 40

Part II. Build a Working Pipeline

3. Build Your First End-to-End Pipeline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
The Simplest Scaffolding 45
Prototype of an ML Editor 47
Parse and Clean Data 47
Tokenizing Text 48
Generating Features 48
Test Your Workflow 50
User Experience 50
Modeling Results 51
ML Editor Prototype Evaluation 52
Model 53
User Experience 53
Conclusion 54

4. Acquire an Initial Dataset. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Iterate on Datasets 55
Do Data Science 56
Explore Your First Dataset 57
Be Efficient, Start Small 57
Insights Versus Products 58
A Data Quality Rubric 58
Label to Find Data Trends 64
Summary Statistics 65
Explore and Label Efficiently 67
Be the Algorithm 82
Data Trends 84
Let Data Inform Features and Models 85
Build Features Out of Patterns 85
ML Editor Features 88
Robert Munro: How Do You Find, Label, and Leverage Data? 89
Conclusion 90

iv | Table of Contents
Part III. Iterate on Models
5. Train and Evaluate Your Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
The Simplest Appropriate Model 95
Simple Models 96
From Patterns to Models 98
Split Your Dataset 99
ML Editor Data Split 105
Judge Performance 106
Evaluate Your Model: Look Beyond Accuracy 109
Contrast Data and Predictions 109
Confusion Matrix 110
ROC Curve 111
Calibration Curve 114
Dimensionality Reduction for Errors 116
The Top-k Method 116
Other Models 121
Evaluate Feature Importance 121
Directly from a Classifier 122
Black-Box Explainers 123
Conclusion 125

6. Debug Your ML Problems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Software Best Practices 127
ML-Specific Best Practices 128
Debug Wiring: Visualizing and Testing 130
Start with One Example 130
Test Your ML Code 136
Debug Training: Make Your Model Learn 140
Task Difficulty 142
Optimization Problems 144
Debug Generalization: Make Your Model Useful 146
Data Leakage 147
Overfitting 147
Consider the Task at Hand 150
Conclusion 151

7. Using Classifiers for Writing Recommendations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Extracting Recommendations from Models 154
What Can We Achieve Without a Model? 154
Extracting Global Feature Importance 155
Using a Model’s Score 156

Table of Contents | v
 Extracting Local Feature Importance 157
Comparing Models 159
Version 1: The Report Card 160
Version 2: More Powerful, More Unclear 160
Version 3: Understandable Recommendations 162
Generating Editing Recommendations 163
Conclusion 167

Part IV. Deploy and Monitor

8. Considerations When Deploying Models. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Data Concerns 172
Data Ownership 172
Data Bias 173
Systemic Bias 174
Modeling Concerns 175
Feedback Loops 175
Inclusive Model Performance 177
Considering Context 177
Adversaries 178
Abuse Concerns and Dual-Use 179
Chris Harland: Shipping Experiments 180
Conclusion 182

9. Choose Your Deployment Option. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Server-Side Deployment 183
Streaming Application or API 184
Batch Predictions 186
Client-Side Deployment 188
On Device 189
Browser Side 191
Federated Learning: A Hybrid Approach 191
Conclusion 193

10. Build Safeguards for Models. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Engineer Around Failures 195
Input and Output Checks 196
Model Failure Fallbacks 200
Engineer for Performance 204
Scale to Multiple Users 204
Model and Data Life Cycle Management 207

vi | Table of Contents
 Data Processing and DAGs 210
Ask for Feedback 211
Chris Moody: Empowering Data Scientists to Deploy Models 214
Conclusion 216

11. Monitor and Update Models. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

Monitoring Saves Lives 217
Monitoring to Inform Refresh Rate 217
Monitor to Detect Abuse 218
Choose What to Monitor 219
Performance Metrics 219
Business Metrics 222
CI/CD for ML 223
A/B Testing and Experimentation 224
Other Approaches 227
Conclusion 228

Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

Table of Contents | vii

 Preface

The Goal of Using Machine Learning Powered Applications

Over the past decade, machine learning (ML) has increasingly been used to power a
variety of products such as automated support systems, translation services, recom‐
mendation engines, fraud detection models, and many, many more.
Surprisingly, there aren’t many resources available to teach engineers and scientists
how to build such products. Many books and classes will teach how to train ML mod‐
els or how to build software projects, but few blend both worlds to teach how to build
practical applications that are powered by ML.
Deploying ML as part of an application requires a blend of creativity, strong engi‐
neering practices, and an analytical mindset. ML products are notoriously challeng‐
ing to build because they require much more than simply training a model on a
dataset. Choosing the right ML approach for a given feature, analyzing model errors
and data quality issues, and validating model results to guarantee product quality are
all challenging problems that are at the core of the ML building process.
This book goes through every step of this process and aims to help you accomplish
each of them by sharing a mix of methods, code examples, and advice from me and
other experienced practitioners. We’ll cover the practical skills required to design,
build, and deploy ML–powered applications. The goal of this book is to help you suc‐
ceed at every part of the ML process.

Use ML to Build Practical Applications

If you regularly read ML papers and corporate engineering blogs, you may feel over‐
whelmed by the combination of linear algebra equations and engineering terms. The
hybrid nature of the field leads many engineers and scientists who could contribute
their diverse expertise to feel intimidated by the field of ML. Similarly, entrepreneurs

ix
and product leaders often struggle to tie together their ideas for a business with what
is possible with ML today (and what may be possible tomorrow).
This book covers the lessons I have learned working on data teams at multiple com‐
panies and helping hundreds of data scientists, software engineers, and product man‐
agers build applied ML projects through my work leading the artificial intelligence
program at Insight Data Science.
The goal of this book is to share a step-by-step practical guide to building ML–pow‐
ered applications. It is practical and focuses on concrete tips and methods to help you
prototype, iterate, and deploy models. Because it spans a wide range of topics, we will
go into only as much detail as is needed at each step. Whenever possible, I will pro‐
vide resources to help you dive deeper into the topics covered if you so desire.
Important concepts are illustrated with practical examples, including a case study that
will go from idea to deployed model by the end of the book. Most examples will be
accompanied by illustrations, and many will contain code. All of the code used in this
book can be found in the book’s companion GitHub repository.
Because this book focuses on describing the process of ML, each chapter builds upon
concepts defined in earlier ones. For this reason, I recommend reading it in order so
that you can understand how each successive step fits into the entire process. If you
are looking to explore a subset of the process of ML, you might be better served with
a more specialized book. If that is the case, I’ve shared a few recommendations.

Additional Resources
• If you’d like to know ML well enough to write your own algorithms from scratch,
I recommend Data Science from Scratch, by Joel Grus. If the theory of deep learn‐
ing is what you are after, the textbook Deep Learning (MIT Press), by Ian Good‐
fellow, Yoshua Bengio, and Aaron Courville, is a comprehensive resource.
• If you are wondering how to train models efficiently and accurately on specific
datasets, Kaggle and fast.ai are great places to look.
• If you’d like to learn how to build scalable applications that need to process a lot
of data, I recommend looking at Designing Data-Intensive Applications (O’Reilly),
by Martin Kleppmann.

If you have coding experience and some basic ML knowledge and want to build ML–
driven products, this book will guide you through the entire process from product
idea to shipped prototype. If you already work as a data scientist or ML engineer, this
book will add new techniques to your ML development tool. If you do not know how
to code but collaborate with data scientists, this book can help you understand the
process of ML, as long as you are willing to skip some of the in-depth code examples.
Let’s start by diving deeper into the meaning of practical ML.

x | Preface
Practical ML
For the purpose of this introduction, think of ML as the process of leveraging pat‐
terns in data to automatically tune algorithms. This is a general definition, so you will
not be surprised to hear that many applications, tools, and services are starting to
integrate ML at the core of the way they function.
Some of these tasks are user-facing, such as search engines, recommendations on
social platforms, translation services, or systems that automatically detect familiar
faces in photographs, follow instructions from voice commands, or attempt to pro‐
vide useful suggestions to finish a sentence in an email.
Some work in less visible ways, silently filtering spam emails and fraudulent accounts,
serving ads, predicting future usage patterns to efficiently allocate resources, or
experimenting with personalizing website experiences for each user.
Many products currently leverage ML, and even more could do so. Practical ML
refers to the task of identifying practical problems that could benefit from ML and
delivering a successful solution to these problems. Going from a high-level product
goal to ML–powered results is a challenging task that this book tries to help you to
accomplish.
Some ML courses will teach students about ML methods by providing a dataset and
having them train a model on them, but training an algorithm on a dataset is a small
part of the ML process. Compelling ML–powered products rely on more than an
aggregate accuracy score and are the results of a long process. This book will start
from ideation and continue all the way through to production, illustrating every step
on an example application. We will share tools, best practices, and common pitfalls
learned from working with applied teams that are deploying these kinds of systems
every day.

What This Book Covers

To cover the topic of building applications powered by ML, the focus of this book is
concrete and practical. In particular, this book aims to illustrate the whole process of
building ML–powered applications.
To do so, I will first describe methods to tackle each step in the process. Then, I will
illustrate these methods using an example project as a case study. The book also con‐
tains many practical examples of ML in industry and features interviews with profes‐
sionals who have built and maintained production ML models.

The entire process of ML

To successfully serve an ML product to users, you need to do more than simply train
a model. You need to thoughtfully translate your product need to an ML problem,

Preface | xi
gather adequate data, efficiently iterate in between models, validate your results, and
deploy them in a robust manner.
Building a model often represents only a tenth of the total workload of an ML project.
Mastering the entire ML pipeline is crucial to successfully build projects, succeed at
ML interviews, and be a top contributor on ML teams.

A technical, practical case study

While we won’t be re-implementing algorithms from scratch in C, we will stay practi‐
cal and technical by using libraries and tools providing higher-level abstractions. We
will go through this book building an example ML application together, from the ini‐
tial idea to the deployed product.
I will illustrate key concepts with code snippets when applicable, as well as figures
describing our application. The best way to learn ML is by practicing it, so I encour‐
age you to go through the book reproducing the examples and adapting them to build
your own ML–powered application.

Real business applications

Throughout this book, I will include conversations and advice from ML leaders who
have worked on data teams at tech companies such as StitchFix, Jawbone, and Figur‐
eEight. These discussions will cover practical advice garnered after building ML
applications with millions of users and will correct some popular misconceptions
about what makes data scientists and data science teams successful.

Prerequisites
This book assumes some familiarity with programming. I will mainly be using
Python for technical examples and assume that the reader is familiar with the syntax.
If you’d like to refresh your Python knowledge, I recommend The Hitchhiker’s Guide
to Python (O’Reilly), by Kenneth Reitz and Tanya Schlusser.
In addition, while I will define most ML concepts referred to in the book, I will not
cover the inner workings of all ML algorithms used. Most of these algorithms are
standard ML methods that are covered in introductory-level ML resources, such as
the ones mentioned in “Additional Resources” on page x.

Our Case Study: ML–Assisted Writing

To concretely illustrate this idea, we will build an ML application together as we go
through this book.
As a case study, I chose an application that can accurately illustrate the complexity of
iterating and deploying ML models. I also wanted to cover a product that could pro‐

xii | Preface
duce value. This is why we will be implementing a machine learning–powered writing
assistant.
Our goal is to build a system that will help users write better. In particular, we will
aim to help people write better questions. This may seem like a very vague objective,
and I will define it more clearly as we scope out the project, but it is a good example
for a few key reasons.
Text data is everywhere
Text data is abundantly available for most use cases you can think of and is core
to many practical ML applications. Whether we are trying to better understand
the reviews of our product, accurately categorize incoming support requests, or
tailor our promotional messages to potential audiences, we will consume and
produce text data.
Writing assistants are useful
From Gmail’s text prediction feature to Grammarly’s smart spellchecker, ML–
powered editors have proven that they can deliver value to users in a variety of
ways. This makes it particularly interesting for us to explore how to build them
from scratch.
ML–assisted writing is self-standing
Many ML applications can function only when tightly integrated into a broader
ecosystem, such as ETA prediction for ride-hailing companies, search and rec‐
ommendation systems for online retailers, and ad bidding models. A text editor,
however, even though it could benefit from being integrated into a document
editing ecosystem, can prove valuable on its own and be exposed through a sim‐
ple website.
Throughout the book, this project will allow us to highlight the challenges and associ‐
ated solutions we suggest to build ML–powered applications.

The ML Process
The road from an idea to a deployed ML application is long and winding. After see‐
ing many companies and individuals build such projects, I’ve identified four key suc‐
cessive stages, which will each be covered in a section of this book.

1. Identifying the right ML approach: The field of ML is broad and often proposes a
multitude of ways to tackle a given product goal. The best approach for a given
problem will depend on many factors such as success criteria, data availability,
and task complexity. The goals of this stage are to set the right success criteria
and to identify an adequate initial dataset and model choice.
2. Building an initial prototype: Start by building an end-to-end prototype before
working on a model. This prototype should aim to tackle the product goal with

Preface | xiii
 no ML involved and will allow you to determine how to best apply ML. Once a
prototype is built, you should have an idea of whether you need ML, and you
should be able to start gathering a dataset to train a model.
3. Iterating on models: Now that you have a dataset, you can train a model and eval‐
uate its shortcomings. The goal of this stage is to repeatedly alternate between
error analysis and implementation. Increasing the speed at which this iteration
loop happens is the best way to increase ML development speed.
4. Deployment and monitoring: Once a model shows good performance, you should
pick an adequate deployment option. Once deployed, models often fail in unex‐
pected ways. The last two chapters of this book will cover methods to mitigate
and monitor model errors.

There is a lot of ground to cover, so let’s dive right in and start with Chapter 1!

Conventions Used in This Book

The following typographical conventions are used in this book:
Italic
Indicates new terms, URLs, email addresses, filenames, and file extensions.
Constant width
Used for program listings, as well as within paragraphs to refer to program ele‐
ments such as variable or function names, databases, data types, environment
variables, statements, and keywords.
Constant width bold
Shows commands or other text that should be typed literally by the user.
Constant width italic
Shows text that should be replaced with user-supplied values or by values deter‐
mined by context.

This element signifies a tip or suggestion.

This element signifies a general note.

xiv | Preface
 This element indicates a warning or caution.

Using Code Examples

Supplemental code examples for this book are available for download at https://
oreil.ly/ml-powered-applications.
If you have a technical question or a problem using the code examples, please send
email to bookquestions@oreilly.com.
This book is here to help you get your job done. In general, if example code is offered
with this book, you may use it in your programs and documentation. You do not
need to contact us for permission unless you’re reproducing a significant portion of
the code. For example, writing a program that uses several chunks of code from this
book does not require permission. Selling or distributing examples from O’Reilly
books does require permission. Answering a question by citing this book and quoting
example code does not require permission. Incorporating a significant amount of
example code from this book into your product’s documentation does require
permission.
We appreciate, but generally do not require, attribution. An attribution usually
includes the title, author, publisher, and ISBN. For example: Building Machine Learn‐
ing Powered Applications by Emmanuel Ameisen (O’Reilly). Copyright 2020 Emma‐
nuel Ameisen, 978-1-492-04511-3.”
If you feel your use of code examples falls outside fair use or the permission given
here, feel free to contact us at permissions@oreilly.com.

O’Reilly Online Learning

For more than 40 years, O’Reilly Media has provided technol‐
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companies succeed.

Our unique network of experts and innovators share their knowledge and expertise
through books, articles, conferences, and our online learning platform. O’Reilly’s
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Preface | xv
Figure 1-3. Example types of structured and unstructured data

In the medical domain, a knowledge extraction model could be built to take raw text
from medical papers as input, and extract information such as the disease that is dis‐
cussed in the paper, as well as the associated diagnosis and its performance. In
Figure 1-4, a model takes a sentence as an input and extracts which words refer to a
type of media and which words refer to the title of a media. Using such a model on
comments in a fan forum, for example, would allow us to generate summaries of
which movies frequently get discussed.

Figure 1-4. Extracting media type and title from a sentence

For images, knowledge extraction tasks often consist of finding areas of interest in an
image and categorizing them. Two common approaches are depicted in Figure 1-5:
object detection is a coarser approach that consists of drawing rectangles (referred to

Estimate What Is Possible | 9

Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
renunciation of Roman Catholicism, privately, however, and under an
assumed character, in one of the London churches!
In December the same journals chronicle as a notable incident,
‘That the Chevalier de St. George and his Son (call’d Cardinall of
York) had a long audience of the Pope, a few days ago, which ’tis
pretended turn’d upon some despatches, receiv’d the day before
from the Chevalier’s eldest Son.’ Whatever these despatches
contained, loyal Londoners hugged themselves on the fact that the
Princess of Wales was taking her part in annually increasing the
number of heirs to the Protestant Succession, and loyal clerics
expounded the favourite text (Prov. xxix. 2), ‘When the righteous are
in authority, the people rejoice.’ Preachers of the old Sacheverel
quality took the other half of the verse, ‘When the wicked beareth
rule, the people mourn.’ These were convenient texts, which did not
require particularly clever fellows to twist them in any direction.
 CHAPTER XII.

(1751 to 1761.)
rom the year 1751 to the coronation of George III.
(1761), the London Parliament and the London
newspapers were the sole sources from which the
metropolitan Jacobites, who were not ‘in the secret,’
could obtain any information. There were two events in
the earlier year which in some degree interested the Jacobite party.
The first was the death of Frederick, Prince of Wales. His way of life
has been mercilessly censured, but, considering the standard of
morals of his time, it was not worse than that of contemporary
princes. It was quite as pure as that of Charles Edward (the Jacobite
‘Prince of Wales’), with whom ultra-Tories disparagingly compared
him. Many lies were told of him, cowardly defamers knowing that a
prince cannot stoop to defend himself from calumny. It was assumed
that he was of the bad quality of the worthless, scampish men who
were among his friends. The assumption was not altogether
unjustifiable. ‘He possessed many amiable qualities,’ said Mrs.
Delany, speaking for the aristocracy. ‘His condescension was such
that he kept very bad company,’ said a May Fair parson on the part
of the church. The well-known Jacobite epigram not only refused to
be sorry at his death, but declared that had it been the whole royal
generation, it would have been so much the better for the nation.
The press chronicled the event without comment. On ‘Change, the
Jacobites openly said, ‘Oh, had it only been the butcher!’ A few
weeks later everybody was drinking ‘the Prince of Wales’—George
or Charles Edward.
The other death was that of Viscount Bolingbroke,
DEATH OF
which occurred in the last month of the year 1751. GREAT
Bubb Dodington reflected the general indifference, by PERSONAGES
the simple entry in his Diary, ‘Dec. 12. This day died .
Lord Bolingbroke.’ The newspapers said little more of the pseudo-
Jacobite than they had said of the prince. It amounted to the sum of
Mrs. Delany’s testimony, and ‘she remembered Lord Bolingbroke’s
person; that he was handsome, had a fine address, but that he was
a great drinker, and swore terribly.’ His own treachery to the
Chevalier de St. George caused more than one honest Jacobite to
be suspected of treason to his lawful king. He made the name
odious, and almost warranted the assertion of Burgess (an old
divine, a familiar friend of the St. John family), who declared in all
good faith, that God ever hated Jacobites, and therefore He called
Jacob’s sons by the name of Israelites!
The references to modern Jacobites in the
THE NEW
Parliament at Westminster began, however, now to HEIR TO THE
be fewer and far between. There was not, on the THRONE.
other hand, much additional respect expressed for
‘the happy establishment.’ On an occasion in 1752, when 22,000l.
were about to be voted as a subsidy to the Elector of Saxony, some
of ‘the electoral family’ seem to have been present in the House.
Beckford, as outspoken as Shippen of old, saw his opportunity and
remarked: ‘I am here as an English gentleman; as such, I have the
right to talk freely of the greatest subject of the King, and much more
of the greatest subject of any foreign state. If there be any persons in
the House, belonging to any Princes of Germany, they ought not to
be here; and, if they are, they must take it for their pains;—for, their
presence, I hope, will not keep any member in such an awe as to
prevent him from freely speaking.’ The subsidy, however, was
granted.
The principles of the men who surrounded the young Prince of
Wales became of absorbing interest,—for pure, as well as party,
reasons. Bubb Dodington, in December, 1752, speaks in his Diary of
an anonymous manifesto, which was in fact a remonstrance to the
king from the Whig nobility and gentry, against the method according
to which the heir to the throne was being educated; and also against
the arbitrary principles of the men then in power; but especially that
‘there was a permanency of power placed in three men whom they
looked upon as dangerous; and that these three men entirely trusted
and were governed by two others, one of whom had the absolute
direction of the Prince, and was of a Tory family, and bred in arbitrary
principles; and the other, who was bred a professed Jacobite, of a
declared Jacobite family, and whose brother, now at Rome, was a
favourite of the Pretender, and even his Secretary of State. In short,
the corollary was, that Murray, Solicitor-General, and Stone,
governed the country.’ A copy of this anti-Jacobite declaration
reached the king’s hands. ‘What was the effect,’ says the diarist, ‘I
can’t tell; but I know they were very much intrigued to find out
whence it came, and who was the author.’
In 1753, in the debate in the Commons on the
LORD
number of land forces to be raised and paid for during EGMONT ON
that year, Lord Egmont made a speech, the JACOBITES.
immediate report of which must have raised surprise
and anger in St. James’s Street and Pall Mall. That Lord Egmont
should denounce increase in the number of men was to be
expected, but the Jacobites hardly expected from him such a blow
as was dealt in the following words:—‘I am sure the old pretence of
Jacobitism can now furnish no argument for keeping up a numerous
army in time of peace, for they met with such a rebuff in their last
attempt that I am convinced they will never make another, whatever
sovereign possesses, as his Majesty does, the hearts and affections
of all the rest of his subjects, especially as they must now be
convinced, however much France may encourage them to rebel, she
will never give them any effectual assistance.’
It is observable that the Jacobites began to be IN BOTH
spoken of in less unworthy tones by their antagonists HOUSES.
than before. The Pope and ‘Papists’ were referred to
in no unbecoming phrases. Indeed, the English ‘Catholics’ were
never rancorously assailed. The popular spirit was (and is) against
that Ultramontanism which would stop at no crime to secure its own
triumph; which recognises no law, no king, no country, but Roman,
and which, asserting licence for itself, is the bitter and treacherous
enemy of every civil and religious liberty. The Earl of Bath reflected
the better spirit that prevailed when, in 1753, in the debate on the Bill
for annexing the forfeited estates in Scotland to the Crown (which
ultimately passed), he said, ‘I wish national prejudices were utterly
extinguished. We ought to live like brothers, for we have long lived
under the same sovereign, and are now firmly united not only into
one kingdom, but into one and the same general interest; therefore,
the question ought never to be, who are English? or, who are Scots?
but, who are most capable and most diligent in the service of their
King and Country.’
One reference to the rebellion was made in the House of
Commons, in 1754, in the debate on the propriety of extending the
action of the Mutiny Bill to the East Indies. Murray, the Solicitor-
(soon after the Attorney-) General, observed, ‘His present Majesty
will not attempt it’ (proclaim martial law, under any circumstance,
independently of parliament), ‘as no such thing was thought of during
the late Rebellion, notwithstanding the immense danger we should
have been in, had His Royal Highness and troops from Flanders
been detained but a few weeks by contrary winds.’
Although there was plotting in 1753, and mischief
JACOBITE
was a-foot, and Government spies were far from HEALTHS.
having an idle time of it, the royal family lived in
comparative quiet, save one passing episode connected with a
charge laid, in the month of March, against Bishop Johnson, of
Gloucester, Murray (Solicitor-General), and Stone (one of the sub-
preceptors to the Princes George and Edward)—as Jacobites—of
having had, as Walpole puts it, ‘an odd custom of toasting the
Chevalier and my Lord Dunbar (Murray’s brother and one of the
Chevalier’s peers) at one Vernon’s, a merchant, about twenty years
ago. The Pretender’s counterpart (the King) ordered the Council to
examine into it.’ The accuser, Fawcett, a lawyer, prevaricated. ‘Stone
and Murray,’ says Walpole, ‘took the Bible, on their innocence.
Bishop Johnson scrambled out of the scrape at the very beginning;
and the Council have reported to the King that the accusation was
false and malicious.’
Vernon was in reality a linen-draper. Few people doubted the
alleged drinking of Jacobite healths at his house. The dowager
Princess of Wales told Bubb Dodington that her late husband had
told her that Stone was a Jacobite,—the prince was convinced of it,
and when affairs went ill abroad, he used to say to her in a passion:
How could better be expected when such a Jacobite as Stone could
be trusted?
Lord Harcourt, Prince George’s governor, was a THE ROYAL
pedantic man, having no sympathies with the young. FAMILY.
My lord was not much of a Mentor for a young
Telemachus. He bored the prince by enjoining him to hold up his
head, and, ‘for God’s sake,’ to turn out his toes. The tutors of Prince
George, after his father’s death, were in fact divided among
themselves. Bishop Hayter, of Norwich, and Lord Harcourt were
openly at war with Stone and Scott (the last put in by Bolingbroke),
who were countenanced by the dowager princess and Murray, ‘so
my Lord Bolingbroke dead, will govern, which he never could living.’
Murray, and Stone, and Cresset were Jacobites. Cresset called Lord
Harcourt a groom, and the bishop an atheist. The princess accused
the latter of teaching her sons, George and Edward, nothing. The
bishop retorted by declaring that he was never allowed to teach them
anything. His chief complaint was that Jacobite Stone had lent
Prince George (or the Prince of Wales) a highly Jacobite book to
read, namely, ‘The Revolutions of England,’ by Father D’Orléans; but
the objectionable work had really been lent by ‘Lady Augusta’ to
Prince Edward, and by him to his elder brother.
Tindal, the historian, remarks that about this very PARLIAMENTA
year (1753) ‘a wonderful spirit of loyalty began to take RY
place all over the kingdom.’ The debates in the two ANECDOTES.
Houses at Westminster confirm this. The old anxious
tone was no longer heard. Not a single reference to Jacobites and
their designs can be found in the reports of the proceedings in the
Legislature. ‘High Church,’ which was once a disloyal menace,
became a subject of ridicule. Horace Walpole thus playfully
illustrated the ignorance of the High Church party in a debate on the
proposal to repeal the Jews’ Naturalization Bill. ‘I remember,’ he said
‘to have heard a story of a gentleman, a High Churchman, who was
a member of this House, when it was the custom that candles could
not be brought in without a motion regularly made and seconded for
that purpose, and an order of the House pursuant thereto, so that it
often became a question whether candles should be brought in or
no, and this question was sometimes debated until the members
could hardly see one another, for those who were against, or for
putting off the affair before the House, were always against the
question for candles. Now it happened, upon one of those
occasions, that the High Church party were against the affair then
depending, and therefore against the question for candles; but this
gentleman, by mistake, divided for it, and when he was challenged
by one of his party for being against them, “Oh Lord!” says he, “I’m
sorry for it, but I thought that candles were for the church!”’
Admiral Vernon, ‘the people’s man,’ supporting the
ATTEMPT TO
popular prejudice against the emancipation of the MAKE
Jews, said that if the Bill passed, rich Jews would ‘PERVERTS.’
insist upon the conversion of everyone employed by
them, ‘and should they once get the majority of common people on
their side, we should soon be all obliged to be circumcised. That this
is no chimerical danger, Sir, I am convinced from what lately
happened in my county. There was there a great and a rich Popish
lady lived in it, who, by connivance, had publicly a chapel in her own
house, where mass was celebrated every Sunday and Holiday. The
lady, out of zeal for her religion, had every such day a great number
of buttocks and sirloins of beef roasted or boiled, with plenty of roots
and greens from her own garden, and every poor person who came
to hear mass at her chapel was sure of a good dinner. What was the
consequence? The neighbouring parish churches were all deserted,
and the lady’s chapel was crowded, for as the common people have
not learning enough, no more than some of their betters, to
understand or judge of abstruse speculative points of divinity, they
thought that mass, with a good dinner, was better than the church
service without one, and probably they would judge in the same
manner of a Jewish synagogue.’
In one sense Tindal’s view of the general increase
DR.
of loyalty was not ill-founded. There was, however, an ARCHIBALD
increase of Jacobite audacity also; but the CAMERON.
Government were as well aware of it as they were
that the Chevalier was hiding at Bouillon, and that the people there
were heartily sick of him. One proof of their vigilance was made
manifest in the spring of 1753. On the 16th of April, at 6 o’clock in
the evening, a coach, with an escort of dragoons about it, and a
captive gentleman within, was driven rapidly through the City
towards the Tower. The day was the anniversary of Culloden. The
time of day was that when the friends of the happy establishment
were at the tipsiest of their tipsy delight in drunken honour of the
victory. It was soon known who the prisoner was. He was Dr.
Archibald Cameron, brother of Duncan Cameron, of Lochiel. Duncan
had joined Charles Edward, in obedience to his sentimental prince,
but with the conviction that the insurrection would be a failure.
Archibald had followed his elder brother as in duty bound, and the
prince from a principle of allegiance. After Culloden and much
misery, they and others escaped to France by the skin of their teeth.
The King of France gave Duncan the command of a regiment of
Scots; Archibald was appointed doctor to it, and each pretty well
starved on his appointment. Both were under attainder, and subject
to death, not having surrendered before a certain date, or offered to
do so after it.
Had Archibald remained quietly in France, his life at least would
have been in no danger; but in the early part of 1753, he crossed to
Scotland in the utmost secrecy, and when he landed he had not the
remotest idea that the eye of Sam Cameron, a Government spy, was
upon him, by whom his movements were made known to the
Ministry at the Cockpit in Downing Street. There can be no doubt
that the doctor went to his native land on a political mission. ‘He
certainly,’ says Walpole, ‘came over with commission to feel the
ground.’ He always protested that he was there on private business
connected with the estate of Lochiel. His enemies declared that the
private business referred to a deposit of money for the Jacobite
cause, the secret of the hiding-place of which was known to
Archibald, and that he intended to appropriate the cash to his own
use. Had Cameron’s mission not been hostile to the established
government, he probably would have asked permission to visit
Scotland; and, more than probably, he would have been permitted to
do so. Be this as it may, his namesake, the spy, betrayed him; and
the Justice Clerk of Edinburgh, washing his hands of the business,
sent the trapped captive to London, where he arrived on the seventh
anniversary of the decisive overthrow of the Stuart cause, and while
the ‘joyous and loyal spirits’ were getting preciously hysterical in
memory thereof. The ‘quality,’ however, were supremely indifferent
‘Nobody,’ writes Walpole, ‘troubled their head about him, or anything
else but Newmarket, where the Duke of Cumberland is at present
making a campaign, with half the nobility, and half the money of
England, attending him.’
In the Tower Dr. Cameron was allowed to rest BEFORE THE
some eight and forty hours, and then a multitude saw COUNCIL.
him carried from the fortress to where the Privy
Council were sitting. The illustrious members of that body were in an
angry mood. They were blustering in their manner, but they stooped
to flattering promises if he would only make a revelation. When he
declined to gratify them, they fell into loud tumultuous threatenings.
They could neither frighten nor cajole him; and accordingly they flung
him to the law, and to the expounders and the executants of it.
Very short work did the latter make with the poor TRIAL OF
gentleman. It is said that when he was first captured CAMERON.
he denied being the man they took him for. Now, on
the 17th of May, he made no such denial, nor did he deny having
been in arms against the ‘present happy establishment.’ He declared
that circumstances, over which he had no control, prevented him
from clearing his attainder by a surrender on or before a stated day.
But he neither concealed his principles nor asked for mercy. There
was no intention of according him any. Sir William Lee and his
brother judges, the identity of the prisoner being undisputed, agreed
that he must be put to death under the old attainder, and Lee
delivered the sentence with a sort of solemn alacrity. It was the old,
horrible sentence of partial hanging, disembowelling, and so forth.
When Lee had reached the declaration as to hanging, he looked the
doctor steadily in the face, said with diabolical emphasis, ‘but not till
you are dead;’ and added all the horrible indignities to which the poor
body, externally and internally, was to be subjected. The judge was
probably vexed at finding no symptom that he had scared the
helpless victim, who was carried back to the Tower amid the
sympathies of Jacobites and the decorous curiosity of ladies and
gentlemen who gazed at him, and the gay dragoons escorting him,
as they passed.
Next day, and for several days, Jean Cameron, the THE
doctor’s wife, was seen going to St. James’s Palace, DOCTOR’S
to Leicester House, and to Kensington. She was JACOBITISM.
admitted, by proper introduction to majesty, to the
dowager Princess of Wales and to the Princess Amelia. The
sunshine of such High Mightinesses should ever bear with it grace
and mercy; but poor and pretty Jean Cameron found nothing but
civility, and an expression of regret that the law must be left to take
its course. She went back to cheer, if she could, her doomed, but not
daunted, husband. He was not allowed pen and ink and paper, but
under rigid restrictions. What he wrote was read. If it was not to the
taste of the warders, they tore up the manuscript, and deprived the
doctor of the means of writing. Nevertheless, he contrived to get
slips of paper and a pencil, and therewith to record certain opinions,
all of which he made over to his wife.
It cannot be said that the record showed any respect whatever for
the king de facto, or for his family. These were referred to as ‘the
Usurper and his Faction.’ The Duke of Cumberland was ‘the
inhuman son of the Elector of Hanover.’ Not that Cameron wished
any harm to them hereafter. He hoped God would forgive, as he put
it, ‘all my enemies, murderers, and false accusers, from the Elector
of Hanover (the present possessor of the throne of our injured
sovereign) and his bloody son down to Sam Cameron, the basest of
their spies, as I freely do!’ He himself, he said, had done many a
good turn to English prisoners in Scotland, had also prevented the
Highlanders from burning the houses and other property of Whigs,
‘for all which,’ he added, ‘I am like to meet with a Hanover reward.’
On the other hand, the doomed man wrote in CHARLES
terms of the highest praise of the old and young EDWARD, A
Chevalier, or the King and Prince of Wales. There PROTESTANT.
would be neither peace nor prosperity till the Stuarts
were restored. The prince was as tenderly affectioned as he was
brave, and Dr. Cameron knew of no order issued at Culloden to give
no quarter to the Elector’s troops. As aide-de-camp to the prince, he
must (he said) have known if such an order was issued. On another
subject, the condemned Jacobite wrote: ‘On the word of a dying
man, the last time I had the honour of seeing His Royal Highness
Charles, Prince of Wales, he told me from his own mouth, and bid
me assure his friends from him, that he was a member of the Church
of England.’ It is to be regretted that no date fixes ‘the last time.’ As
to the assurance, it proves the folly of the speaker; also, that
Cameron himself was not a Roman Catholic, as he was reported to
be.
From Walpole’s Letters and the daily and weekly papers, ample
details of the last moments of this unfortunate man may be collected.
They were marked by a calm, unaffected heroism. ‘The parting with
his wife (writes Walpole) the night before (his execution) was heroic
and tender. He let her stay till the last moment, when being aware
that the gates of the Tower would be locked, he told her so; she fell
at his feet in agonies: he said, “Madam, this is not what you
promised me,” and embracing her, forced her to retire; then, with the
same coolness, looked at the window till her coach was out of sight,
after which, he turned about and wept.’
On the following morning, the 7th of June, Dr. CAMERON’S
Cameron expressed a strong desire to see his wife CREED.
once more, to take a final leave, but this was
explained to him to be impossible. With a singular carefulness as to
his own appearance, which carefulness indeed distinguished all who
suffered in the same cause, he was dressed in a new suit, a light
coloured coat, red waistcoat and breeches, and even a new bagwig!
The hangman chained him to the hurdle on which he was drawn
from the Tower to Tyburn. ‘He looked much at the Spectators in the
Houses and Balconies,’ say the papers, ‘as well as at those in the
Street, and he bowed to several persons.’ He seemed relieved by his
arrival at the fatal tree. Rising readily from the straw in the hurdle, he
ascended the steps into the cart, the hangman slightly supporting
him under one arm. Cameron, with a sort of cheerfulness, welcomed
a reverend gentleman who followed him,—‘a Gentleman in a lay
habit,’ says the ‘Daily Advertiser,’ ‘who prayed with him and then left
him to his private devotions, by which ’twas imagined the Doctor was
a Roman Catholic, and the Gentleman who prayed with him, a
Priest.’ This imagining was wrong. On one of the slips, pencilled in
the Tower, and delivered to his wife, the Doctor had written: ‘I die a
member of the Episcopal Church of Scotland, as by law established
before that most unnatural Rebellion began in 1688, which, for the
sins of this nation, hath continued till this day.’ At Tyburn, moreover,
Cameron made a statement to the sheriff, that he had always been a
member of the Church of England. There was no discrepancy in this,
he was simply an active Jacobite Nonjuror. As the
THE LAST
reverend gentleman who attended him, hurriedly VICTIM.
descended the steps, he slipped. Cameron was quite
concerned for him, and called to him from the cart, ‘I think you do not
know the way so well as I do.’ Walpole says: ‘His only concern
seemed to be at the ignominy of Tyburn. He was not disturbed at the
dresser for his body, nor for the fire to burn his bowels;’ but he
remembered the emphatic remark of his Judge, that the burning was
to take place while he was yet alive; and he asked the sheriff to
order things so that he might be quite dead before the more brutal
part of the sentence was carried out. The sheriff was a remarkably
polite person. He had begged Cameron, after he had mounted into
the cart, not to hurry himself, but to take his own time: they would
wait his pleasure and convenience, and so on. The courteous official
now promised he would see the Doctor effectually strangled out of
life, before knife or fire touched him. On which, Cameron declared
himself to be ready. It was at this juncture, the chaplain hurriedly slipt
down the steps. ‘The wretch,’ says Walpole, who in doubt as to his
Church, calls him ‘minister or priest,’ ‘after taking leave, went into a
landau, where, not content with seeing the Doctor hanged, he let
down the top of the landau, for the better convenience of seeing him
embowelled.’
Even such brutes as then found a sensual delight IN THE SAVOY.
in witnessing the Tyburn horrors were touched by the
unpretentious heroism of this unhappy victim. Some of them
recovered their spirits a day or two after, when a man was pilloried at
Charing Cross. They repaired to the spot with a supply of bricks and
flung them with such savage dexterity as soon to break a couple of
the patient’s ribs. On the 9th of June at midnight, there was a
spectacle to which they were not invited. The Government (wisely
enough) were resolved that Cameron’s funeral should be private.
The body lay where Lovat’s had lain, at Stephenson’s the
undertaker, in the Strand, opposite Exeter Change. A few Jacobite
friends attended and saw the body quietly deposited in what the
papers styled, ‘the great vault in the precincts of the Savoy.’
It was in this month a report was spread that an attempt had been
made to blow up the Tower, from which, perhaps, the legend has
arisen that the young Chevalier and a friend in disguise had been
there to see if it could not be done! ‘The Report,’ according to the
‘Weekly Journal,’ ‘of a lighted match being found at the door of the
Powder Magazine in the Tower was not true.’ A bit of burnt paper
lying on the ground within the Tower gave rise to a story which
agitated all London for a day or two;—and which will be presently
referred to.
How Dr. Cameron’s death affected both parties, in
A SCENE AT
London, is best illustrated by a well-known and RICHARDSON’
picturesque incident recorded by Boswell. Soon after S.
the execution, Hogarth was visiting Richardson, the
author of ‘Clarissa Harlowe.’ ‘And being a warm partisan of George
II., he observed to Richardson that certainly there must have been
some very unfavourable circumstances lately discovered in this
particular case which had induced the King to approve of an
execution for rebellion so long after the time when it was committed,
as this had the appearance of putting a man to death in cold blood,
and was very unlike his Majesty’s usual clemency. While he was
talking, he perceived a person standing at a window of the room
shaking his head, and rolling himself about in a strange ridiculous
manner. He concluded that he was an idiot whom his relations had
put under the care of Mr. Richardson, as a very good man. To his
great surprise, however, this figure stalked forward to where he and
Mr. Richardson were sitting, and all at once took up the argument,
and burst out into an invective against George II., as one who, upon
all occasions, was unrelenting and barbarous, mentioning many
instances. In short, he displayed such a power of eloquence that
Hogarth looked at him with astonishment, and actually imagined that
the idiot had been at the moment inspired. Hogarth and Johnson
were not made known to each other at this interview.’
Neither Hogarth nor Johnson knew the real facts of CAMERON’S
this case. Cameron played a desperate game and CASE.
lost his stake. Scott, in the Introduction to
Redgauntlet,’ declares that whether the execution of Cameron was
political or otherwise, it might have been justified upon reasons of a
public nature had the king’s Ministry thought proper to do so.
Cameron had not visited Scotland solely on private affairs. ‘It was
not considered prudent by the English Ministry to let it be generally
known that he came to inquire about a considerable sum of money
which had been remitted from France to the friends of the exiled
family.’ He had also, as Scott points out, a commission to confer with
Macpherson of Cluny who, from 1746 to 1756, was the
representative or chief agent of the ‘rightful King,’ an office which he
carried on under circumstances of personal misery and peril.
Cameron and Macpherson were to gather together the scattered
embers of disaffection. The former, being captured, paid the forfeit
which was legally due. ‘The ministers, however,’ says Scott, ‘thought
it proper to leave Dr. Cameron’s new schemes in concealment, lest,
by divulging them, they had indicated the channel of communication
which, as is now well known, they possessed to all the plots of
Charles Edward. But it was equally ill-advised and ungenerous to
sacrifice the character of the King to the policy of the administration.
Both points might have been gained by sparing the life of Dr.
Cameron, after conviction, and limiting his punishment to perpetual
exile.’ As it was, Jacobite plots continued to ‘rise and burst like
bubbles on a fountain.’ An affectionate memory of Cameron was
also transmitted through the hearts of his descendants. In the reign
of Victoria, his grandson restored honour to a name which, in a
political point of view, had never been dishonoured.
In the royal chapel of the Savoy, the following inscription is to be
read on the wall beneath a painted glass window:—In memory of
Archibald Cameron, brother of Donald Cameron of Lochiel, who
having been attainted after the battle of Culloden in 1746, escaped
to France, but returning to Scotland in 1753, was apprehended and
executed. He was buried beneath the Altar of this Chapel. This
window is inserted by Her Majesty’s permission in place of a
sculptured tablet which was erected by his grandson, Charles Hay
Cameron, in 1846, and consumed by the fire which partially
destroyed the Chapel in 1864.
The window above referred to has six lights, and each light now
contains figures representing St. Peter, St. Philip, St. Paul, St. John,
St. James, and St. Andrew.
As a sample of how minor offences on the part of A MINOR
unquiet Jacobites were punished, the case may be OFFENDER.
cited of the Rev. James Taylor, who was not allowed
to indulge his Jacobitism even in a compassionate form. A beggar
was arrested in his progress from house to house. He was found to
be the bearer of a recommendatory letter from the Nonjuror Taylor, in
which it was stated that the bearer had fought on the right side at
Preston Pans and Culloden. For this offence Mr. Taylor was tried,
convicted, and heavily sentenced;—namely, to two years’
imprisonment, a fine of 300l., and to find sureties for his good
behaviour during the next seven years, himself in 1000l., and two
others in 500l. each.
All this time, Parliament was perfectly tranquil. There was no flash
of anti-Jacobitism. There was nothing in the debates but what
partook of the lightest of summer-lightning. In the whole session of
1755, there is but one allusion to Jacobites, and that took the form of
a wish that, ten years before, Scotland had been as heavily
oppressed as England was,—in that and many a succeeding year,—
in one special respect. Mr. Robert Dundas, in the Commons’ debate
on speedily manning the Navy, insisted on the legality and propriety
of pressing seamen, and remarked: ‘How happy it would have been
for Scotland, in 1745, if all her seamen had been pressed into the
public service, in order to man a few guard-ships, to prevent the
landing of those who, at that time, raised such a flame in the country;
and yet I believe that a press could not then have been carried on
without the aid of the military.’
 At this time there was one especial trouble in the
SUSPICION
royal family. The dowager Princess of Wales had as AGAINST THE
much dread of the conqueror at Culloden, as if he had DUKE.
been the Jacobite prince himself. Her dominant idea
was that the really good-natured and now corpulent duke would act
Richard III. towards the prince, her son, if opportunity should offer.
Bubb Dodington says, in his Diary, May, 1755: ‘On my commending
the Prince’s figure, and saying he was much taller than the King, she
replied, yes; he was taller than his uncle. I said, in height it might be
so, but if they measured round, the Duke had the advantage of him.
She answered, it was true; but she hoped it was the only advantage
that he ever would have of him.’
In the following year, 1756, electioneering politics THE ANTI-
found violent suggestion and expression. Walpole, JACOBITE
referring to the clamour raised by the Jacobites, PRESS.
speaks of ‘Instructions from counties, cities,
boroughs, especially from the City of London, in the style of 1641,
and really in the spirit of 1715 and 1745, (which) have raised a great
flame.’ On the other hand, Jacobites and their manifestations were
treated by the Whig press with boundless contempt. For example,
the ‘Contest,’ in 1757, flung this paragraph at the supposed few
Jacks now left in London to read it:—‘The word Jacobite is vox et
prœterea nihil. The Name survives after the Party is extinct. There
may be a few enthusiastic Bigots who deem Obstinacy a Merit, and
who appear to be ungrateful for the Liberty and Security they enjoy
under the present Government, and insensible of the Calamity and
Oppression of the Government they would be willing to restore. But
their Power is as inconsiderable as their Principles are detestable.
And many of them, had they an Opportunity of accomplishing their
proposed desires, would be the last to put them in Execution; for
they are mostly influenced by an idle Affectation of Singularity, and
the ridiculous Pride of opposing the Common Sense of their Fellow
Citizens.’
In the same year, the ‘Independent Freeholder’ turned the
question to party account, and divided the people of England into
three classes. It admitted the diminished numbers of Jacobites,
recorded their disaffection, and also accounted for it. The three
classes were—Place Hunters, Jacobites, and English Protestants,
whether Whig or Tory. The ‘Freeholder’ described the Jacobites as:
—‘An Offspring of Zealots, early trained to support the divine
hereditary Right of Men, who forfeited all Right by persisting to do
every Wrong. They are not considerable in Number; and had
probably mixed with the Mass of rational Men, had not the continued
Abuses of the Administration furnished cause of Clamour, enabling
secret Enemies of the Constitution to cherish a groundless Enmity to
the Succession.’
As the reign of George II. drew to a close, in the THE CITY
autumn of 1760, a change came over the City of GATES.
London, which, to many, indicated a new era; namely,
the destruction of those City gates in the preservation of which timid
Whigs saw safety from the assaults of Jacobites. Read announced
the fate of those imaginary defences, in the ‘Journal’ of August 2nd:
—‘On Wednesday, the materials of the three following City Gates
were sold before the Committee of Lands, to Mr. Blagden, a
carpenter, in Coleman Street; namely, Aldgate, for 157l. 10s.;
Cripplegate, for 91l.; and Ludgate, for 148l. The purchaser is to
begin to pull down the two first, on the first day of September; and
Ludgate on the 4th of August, and is to clear away all the rubbish,
&c., in two months from these days.’ In two months, a new reign had
begun, and the old gates had disappeared.
But before proceeding to the new reign, there remains to be
chronicled how the ordinary London Jacobites obtained news of their
King, James, and their Prince of Wales, Charles Edward.
 CHAPTER XIII.

(1751 to 1761.)
uring this decade, there was great
THE OLD
anxiety, on the part of the Jacobites in CHEVALIER
London, to have news of their Prince. Of AND THE
their ‘King’s’ whereabout they knew as CARDINAL.
much as the papers could tell them. These anxious
Jacobites who eagerly opened the London journals for news from
Rome, of ‘the King’ or ‘Prince of Wales,’ were not often rewarded for
their pains. The ‘London Gazette,’ which chronicled the veriest small
beer, had not a word to say as to the Chevalier or his sons. The
other papers recorded, for the comfort or diversion of readers, such
paragraphs as these; namely, that Cardinal York, on his brother’s
birthday, had given a grand entertainment to a brilliant company of
Cardinals and Ladies; and that Rome was more crowded with
English nobility than Hanover, even when King George was in his
electoral dominions. Some sympathy was excited in Jacobite
company, at the intelligence that the Cardinal was recovering from
‘an attack of Small Pocks,’ which had carried off thousands of
victims. As for Prince Edward, as the Cardinal’s brother is often
called in the papers, ‘his place of residence is not known, there being
no other proof of his being alive but the rejoicings of his father on his
son’s birthday.’ Next, ‘Read’ announced, no doubt for the pleasure of
some of its readers, ‘We hear from Rome, by authentick hand, that
Henderson has been formally excommunicated for his “History of the
Rebellion.”’ ‘No one can tell in what place Prince Edward resides,’
says another ‘authentick hand,’ ‘it is currently reported that he is
actually in Italy;’ and again, ‘Some are ready to believe he is still
incog. in France.’ Then came ‘authentick’ news to London, of ignoble
quarrels between the Chevalier and his younger son, squabbles
about money, squabbles among their friends in trying to reconcile
them;—the Pope himself being mixed up in the turmoil, and getting